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enNo One Likes Us: And Another ThingFrom the November 2007 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/no-one-likes-us-and-another-thing
Our panel:
Mike Jones, regional sales manager, Cardiff
Graeme Garvey, school teacher, Leeds
Mark Rann, void management, Chelsea
Peter Garston, business development manager, Millwall
How do people react when you tell them who you support?
Cardiff Straight away they think you’re a trouble maker. People are especially surprised when I tell them, as I’m normally in a suit and tie. They don’t expect Cardiff fans to be able to hold down a professional job.
Millwall The first thing they refer to is the violence. My reaction is to ask whether they read The Sun, because that’s where they pick up these ideas.
Leeds Well it not too bad for me because everyone in and around Leeds supports the club. Normally when we’re losing the fans hide, but they’ve all come back out now. It’s the other local areas like Bradford that have a chip on their shoulder about Leeds as we’re the big team in Yorkshire.
Chelsea For me it’s a relatively novel thing to be one of the most hated clubs in the country. I think we can thank Mr Abramovich for that along with the titles. But I think I’d take being unpopular for being successful.
Do you care that people don’t like you?
Millwall Well that’s our motto isn’t it, “No-one likes us and we don’t care.”
Leeds That’s right. Who cares what other fans think. Let them follow their club and we’ll follow ours.
Millwall A lot of the time when people say they hate Millwall, it’s just down to ignorance. So I’ll explain to them exactly what the club is doing to change these perceptions, and hopefully they take it in.
But that sounds like you do care what people think?
Millwall What we care about is that when there are reports of hooliganism, that it’s reported equally across the board. So if Derby fans have caused trouble, say so, if Bolton have caused trouble, say so. Don’t just repeat the same old story about Millwall when other clubs have the same problem.
Leeds We don’t really care, what we have to fight are Leeds fans playing up to that, “we don’t care attitude,” because that can lead to trouble. But in the last few years we haven’t had time to care about anything other than what’s going on at our club.
Chelsea I don’t really care, no. Why should I?
Cardiff To be honest, it does affect me, but in a very real way. I would sometimes like to follow a club where I didn’t have to book my away ticket six weeks in advance. So there are practical problems with the fact that no-one like us, or thinks we’re trouble makers. When we get on a train, people look at us and you can tell that they feel uncomfortable, and that isn’t a nice feeling. I don’t want to be hated, but it doesn’t change my feelings about Cardiff one iota.
How do you feel about each other?
Leeds There is a Leeds-Chelsea rivalry, going back to 1967 and a disallowed goal at Villa Park in the FA Cup. Our dislike is purely historical. We definitely don’t hate Cardiff though, we gave them Ridsdale!
Cardiff Yeah, thanks for that.
Leeds You never know, it might turn out okay.
Cardiff I’m not sure about that. Whatever happens, I don’t think it’ll be that good.
Millwall I’m not bothered by Chelsea. They don’t hit my radar.
Chelsea There definitely used to be tension between us and Leeds before, but with them two leagues below, it’s not there anymore. The club that we traditionally hated was Tottenham, but in recent years, they’ve been overtaken by Liverpool.
Leeds All down to the Champions League.
Cardiff What about Fulham?
Chelsea Who? They’re irrelevant.
Leeds Do you see them as a little brother?
Chelsea We don’t see them at all.
Leeds Millwall?
Chelsea There used to be, back in the eighties, but not so much now.
Cardiff Our main rivals are obviously Swansea and Bristol City, but there are other teams like Burnley we don’t like.
Why do you think you are the most hated clubs in the country?
Millwall A big problem we have right now is that we’re starting to get all the Chavs from just outside London coming to watch Millwall. Instead of hanging out on street corners and causing trouble, they’re coming to our matches to cause trouble. That certainly doesn’t help.
Chelsea This isn’t really a problem that affects us anymore.
Leeds That’s because they can’t afford it!
Chelsea You’re probably right. But it’s different for us, people don’t like us because we’re successful.
Leeds Let’s not forget your manager.
Cardiff I don’t understand why everyone hates Chelsea. They haven’t won enough to warrant it. They’ve won a couple of leagues and cups, but they haven’t won the Champions League yet.
Chelsea I know Manchester United fans who can’t get used to the idea of neutral fans wanted them to win against us. I think they find it slightly unnerving.
Millwall What’s a neutral? I can’t watch another club unless I’ve got money on it. For me, the way I decide who I want to win is, the further they are away from us, the more I want them to win. If Arsenal play Galatasary, I want Galatasary to win. When I hear someone like Alan Murray say, “all London fans are rooting for Arsenal in Europe”, I think, “who are these fans?” No-one I know that’s for sure. You don’t want your neighbours to do well.
Leeds Lancashire might win the cricket County Championship for the first time in 74 years, and the Yorkshire fans are really upset – 74 years is too soon after their last win.
Cardiff Well, I’m almost half annoyed that we’re here. Where are Man United, Liverpool, Swansea and Bristol City?
How much are the media to blame for the perception people have of your clubs?
Leeds The problem is that some of the teams here are easy targets. The media will say something like “typical Leeds” which criticises the club, without actually saying anything. It’s probably something that goes back to the days of Don Revie, where the players had a reputation for being dirty. Later, when we went down, it was the fans who were disliked, now it’s the management team. All aspects of Leeds have been unpopular at one time or another.
Millwall When we played Brighton last year, their fans were chanting “Seagulls, Seagulls,” but the next day in The Sun, it was claimed that the Millwall fans were chanting “Sieg Heil.” Stories are definitely twisted by the media to cast us in a bad light. It’s no wonder people don’t like us.
Chelsea Well sometimes we get accused of being arrogant or constantly whining because some of the things our manager says, but then all managers moan at some point. But whenever Mourinho does it, it’s picked up by the press, and used as a reason not to like us. But all managers do it.
Leeds What about all the incidents that don’t get reported. A little while ago, a Leeds fans who was a chef went to a match straight after work, carrying all twelve of his kitchen knives. Somehow he got in and watched the entire game with twelve knives on him. Where were all the stories about how no-one was stabbed!
Do you ever see anything that reinforces the perception that others have about your club?
Millwall When we played Southend the other night, there were only a few stewards separating the Millwall and Southend fans. After a while the stewards moved away and the Millwall fans starting moving into the Southend fans section. Before you knew it, a certain element took over and started charging the Southend fans. I’m not saying that’s right, but if the stewards hadn’t moved away, I don’t think it would have happened.
Leeds There was an incident when we played Ipswich last year when Leeds fans invaded the pitch and got the match abandoned. It only takes a few, and you’re left with a massively embarrassing situation where a match has to be abandoned.
Millwall But there are times when even non-incidents are reported, and this is bound to affect the perception people have of our club. There was a report that said that some fan had thrown a pie onto the pitch. Now come on, is that really worth reporting.
Cardiff There are definitely people who come to watch Cardiff who I wished didn’t come to watch games, and it is an embarrassment. They’re not only representing Cardiff, they’re representing Wales and they really should know better.
Chelsea Some of the anti-Semitic chanting that goes on when we play Spurs is horrendous. When I turn around and tell people that Roman Abramovich is Jewish they just look at me like I’m some sort of nutcase.
Should your clubs be doing more to alter these perceptions?
Millwall Well we’re reaching out to the local community and trying to get more fans to come, regardless of colour or creed. We give out free tickets to local kids, and because of the make up of the people who live in the local area, a lot of these fans are from ethnic minorities.
Leeds We have education schemes that involve reading with young kids, which the clubs does, but it’s not reported, it’s not sexy.
Cardiff We’ve now got a system in place where every away fan has to have a membership. This helps the club keep track of who goes to away matches, limiting the opportunity for those who want to cause trouble from travelling.
Chelsea We’ve been pretty prevalent in the Kick Racism Out campaign, but I guess there’s always more you could do. On the other side of, it might help our popularity if Jose Mourinho was slightly more magnanimous every now and then, but then again, he’s no worse than Rafa Benitez in my eyes.
If you’re the most hated, who are the most popular clubs in the country?
Leeds How can you see beyond your own team?
Millwall Whoever’s playing Arsenal.
Chelsea Sorry, I don’t like anyone else.
Cardiff I like Merthyr Tydfil , but that’s about it?
You’ve all had fairly hi-profile chairman in the past few years? How do you feel about them?
Cardiff Do you mean hi-profile or media hungry?
Millwall To be fair, when Theo Paphitis came in, he rescued the club and got us to the cup final. But when he left, we should have been in better financial shape. But since I’ve been involved as fans director, I’ve realised that we need a lot more stability rather than someone who’s going to get some headlines and a few quick wins. I think that’s something we’ve got in Stuart Till. As a fan, him and the other board members think about the club, rather than how much money they can make. It’s run like a business.
Leeds Leeds is run by like a charity; to help ex-players and managers get rich.
Cardiff I nearly wore my “Sam Hammam out” band tonight. In a roundabout way we got to the Championship with Hammam in charge, so we’ve got to thank him for that, but he’s left the club in an incredibly questionable position financially. I once travelled on the same train as him on the way back from an away match and tried to ask a couple of questions about the way he was running the club. Instead of answering them, he just threatened to ban me from ever going to watch Cardiff City again. For that he lost a lot of support from the fans. And now we’ve got Ridsdale. I don’t believe a word that comes out of that mans mouth.
Leeds I don’t blame you. But then again, it could be worse, you could have Ken Bates.
Chelsea I’ve got a lot of time for Ken Bates.
Leeds Do you want him back?
Chelsea Look at what he did for the Chelsea. He went through hell and high water to secure its future.
Cardiff Did he make any money when he left?
Chelsea He made an absolute truckload, but so what? There was all this talk about how anyone else could have done what he did, but where were all these other mystery bidders.
Cardiff I guess that’s the case with Sam Hammam, he came in when no-one else would.
Leeds Ken Bates is slightly strange as a Leeds chairman because they normally live in Yorkshire but he doesn’t even live in England! There are lots of unanswered questions when it comes to him, with all the talk of various companies in the Cayman Islands. Nobody really knows what’s going on in the background. The relationship is not good between him and the fans.
Chelsea Who else would you like to see in charge?
Leeds Abramovich perhaps.
Millwall It’s completely different at Millwall. Stuart Till wants the fans to know everything that goes on, and that’s how you build a relationship with the fans.
Leeds With us it’s a case of love the team, hate the board.
How do you think you’ll fare this season?
Leeds Well now we’re on plus three points and off the bottom of League One [at the time of going to press] we can move forward. But honestly, it’s like the Champions League days again. The spirit there is incredible, and in fact, I can see clubs begging for a penalty next year after the way we’ve started. It’s certainly galvanised the club and there’s every chance now that we could still go up through the playoffs.
Cardiff I have no idea. We’ve lost two at home and won two away. How can you gauge anything from that? If Robbie Fowler and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink play anything like they can, then anything’s possible. But if they go into semi-retirement, which they sort of have already, we could end up fighting relegation.
Millwall We’ve started slowly, but I’m hoping it’s just a blip. I think we’ve just to have faith that Willy Donachie will turn it around.
Cardiff I just saw a rat!
Leeds Right, I’m out of here.
Millwall Was it wearing a West Ham shirt?
Er… We’re in the London Dungeon; I don’t think it was real. What about Chelsea?
Chelsea I think we’re expected to win everything, but I don’t think we will.
Cardiff I think the FA cup is the best they can hope for.
Chelsea I think a good run in the Champions League is essential.
Leeds Before getting knocked out by Liverpool.
Chelsea I don’t think so. Although I’d take winning the league over the Champions League every time. I think I’d almost be happy as long as Liverpool didn’t win anything!
Interviews: November 2007.
featureThu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000Nick Moore495 at http://www.fourfourtwo.comDownsizers: And Another ThingFrom the July 2007 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/downsizers-and-another-thing
Our panel, left to right:
Dominic Liddicott-Mee, Magazine Customer Services – Torquay U, ex Man United
Neil Bateman, Electrician – Heybridge Swifts, ex Ipswich Town
Steve Brown, Marketing Agent – Shrewsbury Town, ex Arsenal
Roy Beeson, IT Manager – Stevenage Borough, ex Leicester City
How did you come to jump ships to a new club?
Stevenage They’re the local team to me: I tried it and I liked it. I’m from Leicestershire and I’ve been a City fan since I was in the womb. It’s only in latter years that I’ve become disaffected with the football in front of me; with the rubbish quality on and off the pitch. There’s the new stadium, the razamatazz of the PA announcer, the way they tender out stadium facilities to the lowest bidder… At Stevenage, at least you know what you’ll be getting: a tea urn at the end of the stand.
Torquay I actually still feel slightly ashamed for following my mates and becoming a Man U fan in the first place. It wasn’t until I moved away from Torquay that I realised I was getting nothing out of it: even if Man U did win everything, I didn’t really identify with the club or the players. When I moved back home, I thought: “If I don’t support Torquay, then who is going to?”. Since then, I’ve even got to play on the Plainmoor pitch. At the weekend I went for an audition to be matchday announcer, and I got it! You don’t get opportunities like that at Old Trafford, do you?
Heybridge Up until the end of last season me and the wife had Ipswich season tickets, but what with work commitments and a three-hour round trip from the coast, we decided not to renew. Still, we needed our football fix so we went along to Heybridge and got completely wrapped up in it. In the big local derby against Chelmsford City (who were gunning for the Ryman Premier title), we equalised with minutes to go and I found myself jumping in the air for the first time. The involvement is actually greater. I asked about getting a shirt, and they said if they didn’t have one my size, they’d give me an old first-team shirt! Now it looks like I’m going to end up on the Supporters’ Club committee, and I’m building the club a website!
Shrewsbury I used to support Arsenal actively until five years ago, but the Premiership has totally changed. I don’t like the money going into it, the money the guys earn, the expense, the cheating: the Ashley Cole saga was the end. There’s no loyalty. And so I took the decision to sell myself on eBay! I said I’d go and support any club in the world, starting the bidding at 1p. Bayern Munich and River Plate were bidding at one point, but eventually I was bought for £102 by Shrewsbury Town!
What are the positives you’ve taken from downsizing?
Torquay By downsizing, you’re not downsizing the enjoyment you get out of football – you’re increasing it. When we got promotion, I felt so much more part of it, having had the chance to meet the players – not to mention Helen Chamberlain. It’s more than just the club, it’s the community. Also, looking up the leagues, I can talk about the Premiership with any fan of those clubs, but they overlook the rest of football.
Shrewsbury It makes you feel special, supporting a smaller club instead of the usual Man United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal. You stand out more. It means something. It’s individual. Stevenage This is my season ticket from Leicester this season, which cost £280 – and I’ve only used six stubs. Compared to possibly the worst season ever at Leicester, at Stevenage I was watching a team of players playing for each other, not individuals. They may not be the best players in the world, but they’re honest. As an environment, it’s more relaxed. I haven’t got a family, but if I did I’d be happier bringing them along to Stevenage than Leicester.
Heybridge You go and watch a game and you feel appreciated. You’re not just a number in the crowd, you’re not just X pounds going into a turnstile, a wallet to be milked – that’s how I started to feel in the Championship and the Premier.
Shrewsbury Course, I’m the opposite to you two – I just swapped a half-hour trip for a three-and-a-half-hour trip. When I went to my first game, I took along my Arsenal shirt and was brought on to the pitch! I was introduced by the pre-match commentator: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to welcome Steve Brown, who we just bought from Arsenal, for £102 and 68 pence”. A lot of the 3,500 fans must have thought, “Well, he can’t be very good…”
But aren’t you really still a secret fan of your original club?
Shrewsbury I don’t really look at the Arsenal games. If they’re on TV I might watch them, but I don’t care. The passion is gone. They’ve had a pretty boring season, frankly, and I’ve had a fantastic season: in the playoffs against MK Dons, and a chance of going to Wembley. And everyone has been so welcoming at Shrewsbury – fans come up to me to say “hope you’re enjoying it”. I’ve met the players and the manager; the club captain Richard Hope said hello, and you just can’t get that close to millionaires. It’s a totally different world, it makes you feel special. I never met anyone at Arsenal. You just feel threatened.
Stevenage I haven’t completely jumped ship. If it came to Stevenage versus Leicester in a Cup game, I’d be a Leicester City supporter. It’s in the blood, and I don’t think I could ever change. On Saturday, Stevenage have got the FA Trophy Final at Wembley, and instead of the expected 15,000 allocation they’ve sold 25,000 to the club… but this is also the same day as Football Aid at the Walkers Stadium, and the guy who sits next to me at work – a City fan, coincidentally; my Leicester City conscience – is playing in a team of Leicester legends. It’s all for charity. I didn’t realise the dates clashed. So I’ll be supporting him from the stands rather than sitting at Wembley in that magnificent stadium that I really want to go and see…
Heybridge I still think of myself as an Ipswich fan, but when it comes to next season I’ll have a season ticket at Heybridge, and I’ll probably only get to a couple of Ipswich games that don’t clash with the Swifts, rather than the other way round. I’ll always be an Ipswich fan – it’s in your blood; the first match I went to was in 1977 – but over time the weighting will change. I enjoy it more, to be honest with you. It’s a different experience now, in the top leagues: it’s like going to the cinema, not like watching football.
Is there an element of nostalgia in your downsizing, going in search of football the way it used to be?
Heybridge Very much so. To be able to stand on the terraces as opposed to having to sit on a plastic seat… To be able to stand there and drink a pint while you’re watching the game – there’s a lot to be said for it. And everybody stands behind the goal, and you all move round at half time. To me, the atmosphere is very much like it was at football in the early ‘80s, albeit on a smaller scale. There’s an intimacy that’s gone, now.
Torquay When we’ve had big teams in the Cup, having terracing has been absolute godsend for the atmosphere, and fitting everybody in. You can move around and stand with different people. And there’s nothing better than jumping up and down like a maniac when your team scores.
Shrewsbury I love it, standing at pitch level, right on the halfway line – it all makes it seem so sterile, sitting miles from the action in a grandstand. I’ve really rediscovered my passion for football. And it’s worked out well for me because I’ve seen the last season at Gay Meadow, which is a pretty ropey stadium but it has a great deal of nostalgia for everyone – and then there’s the move to New Meadow this close season.
Stevenage The main reason I still go to Leicester is because of the people I travel up and go to the games with. If those people disappeared, then I’d be very unlilkely to renew my Leicester season ticket. When I do go, it’s all about before and after the match, not the journeyman players who have nothing to do with the club. I must admit, the first time I went to see Stevenage it was because [Leicester O’Neill-era legend] Steve Guppy plays for them. Meanwhile, following a non-league team reminds me of City’s old pre-season friendlies: it’s safe to have terracing; it’s okay for people to bring car blankets to put over their knees in the stand. There’s less invested in it.
Heybridge It’s all too packaged and perfect in the top leagues – like going to McDonald’s to buy a burger, except you go to White Hart Lane to buy a football match. The nice thing about a crowd of 200 is that when you abuse the ref, you know full well he can hear everything you’re saying!
Do you care what other more loyal fans might think of you, possibly branding you a defector?
Torquay It’s a really bizarre feeling, but my conscience tells me that I was a defector for ever supporting a team other than Torquay United. Now I sit and look in disgust at those fans, and think “I was one of them”.
Heybridge You mean you were once as bad as your evil twin brother, the Spurs fan!? Stevenage When you first raised the issue of ‘defectors’ on the foxfanzine.com messageboard, I was kind of okay with it – until someone pointed out, “you’re going to be the most famous defector Leicester has ever known”! I’m quite happy to be referred to as someone who’s ‘downsized’, but I wouldn’t ever want my loyalty to be questioned.
Shrewsbury Talking to people at Shrewsbury, 99 percent say they understand. I must just add that no money changed hands when I sold my football soul! Of course, it was originally a bit of a joke, and it was completely random to end up a Shrewsbury fan; but I’ve been to six games this season and have been made fantastically welcome; I’ve taken along at least ten more friends and family members, and now I’m hooked for life! The only trouble is, I haven’t seen them win yet. They went 14 games unbeaten until I went see them at Swindon, which they duly lost. Last weekend, with 30 seconds to go, I thought I was going to lose my bad-mascot jinx effect, but then bloody Grimsby scored; but at least we got into the play-offs.
Does the difference between supporting a smaller club rather than a big club come down to reality versus unreality?
Heybridge One of the problems is that football has become fashionable, and if you talk to anybody now, everybody supports a football club – and virtually all of them support a club in the Premiership. I think going to watch a lower team is perhaps an affirmation that you enjoy football as opposed to being part of the hype that it’s become. It’s anti-fashion, if you like.
Stevenage I enjoy playing football, and I enjoy watching players that, with a little stretch of the imagination, I could almost have ended up playing against. In that way, it is more real, less of a product.
Torquay You’ve got to be a certain sort of person to ask yourself why you support a big club; what you’ll do when the fantastic run of success comes to an end. Does anyone really think people who support big teams are big, successful winners themselves? No-one can take me away from Torquay now because I’ve done all that, and now my heart is with my hometown team. I’m with them as they go out of the Football League, and it can’t get much worse than that; but I can help out and play a part.
Heybridge You’re a fan, not a customer.
So what other attractions are there at the lower level that aren’t part of the experience higher up the football pyramid?
Torquay Well, there have been several occasions this year when we’ve turned up with the wrong colour kit. At Boston, for example, we had to wear their reserve kit. We’ve done it about four times in all. Then there was our midweek game against Hartlepool, completely at the other end of the country from Torquay: there were just eight of us booked to go on this away journey, not enough for a coach. So we ended up getting driven up there in a mini-bus by the club’s Commercial Director!
Stevenage It was amazing when the Stevenage star striker, Anthony Elding, wanted to leave the club and go into League football – professional football. He pushed it and pushed it; but Stevenage isn’t the sort of club to be held over a barrel, because they’ve got a millionaire chairman. And what they eventually did was, they shipped him to Kettering who were in the division below, where he spent a whole season. You don’t get that in the Premier League, where the players always get what they want!
Shrewsbury When I went up to the Bury game, a snowy weekend in Shrewsbury, all the fans on the messageboard had a call to action and 40 or 50 of them went down to Gay Meadow with their spades. At least I didn’t see them lose that one!
Heybridge And you don’t get sponsors in the Prem like ‘Morris Lubricants’, do you? I like it at Swifts when you give the linesman a lot of stick, and he turns round and gives you a lot of stick back! Something I will say, when I was just down in the loo, an old boy says to me when I was drying my hands: “Oh, you’re a Newcastle fan”. And I said, “No, no – Heybridge Swifts”. And he said, “Oh, you’re not football, then”. “Ryman Premier,” I put him right. “two steps below the Football League.” “Oh, good on yer,” he says…
While we’ve been talking, Chelsea and Man United have been playing on the big screen. Does anybody know what the score is?
Shrewsbury I didn’t even know it was on.
Stevenage They’re both trying to insult each other by playing their second teams.
Heybridge I couldn’t give a fuck. As a neutral, I’d be more interested if they were playing for something, like a place in the play-offs – or if it was a relegation battle.
Torquay There were twice as many people in the pub earlier, when it was Exeter-Oxford from last night!
Interviews: July 2007.
featureSat, 30 Jun 2007 23:00:00 +0000Nick Moore491 at http://www.fourfourtwo.comSleeping Giants: And Another ThingFrom the June 2007 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/sleeping-giants-and-another-thing
Our panel, left to right:
Andrew Bourne, recruitment consultant, Man City
Ged Clarke, author of Newcastle United: 50 Years of Hurt
Dave Berry, teacher, Leeds
Steve Flack, mental heath advocate, Everton
Bearing in mind your recent lack of success, can you still claim to support a big club?
Leeds I don’t think we can anymore. To be a big club you need a big following and fans that will stick with you, even when you start dropping down the leagues, as we have done. Most importantly, you have to win things and we’re not exactly doing that at present.
Man City These days you have to say Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool are the really big clubs, but I think you can justifiably extend that to those who consistently finish in the Premiership’s top six.
Everton Based on the last 15 years, you could say Everton are not a big club due to the lack of trophies, money and where we’ve finished in the league. However, over throughout history, we’re the fourth most successful club in the country.
Newcastle If you are asking literally, ‘What is a big club?’ I’d say it was one with lots of money, lots of fans and a big ground that is full most of the time. But all of that is fine only so long as you have the team to match it.
Do you believe you have a divine right to success?
Newcastle No, I don’t think anyone has a divine right. I just think that by the law of averages we should have won a trophy in my lifetime. We did win the Fairs Cup when I was just a young lad and I thought ‘This is great, we’re going to win trophies all the time’, but we’ve won nothing since. When you see how much we’ve spent and look at the size of the crowds we command, you assume there’s might be an inevitability about it. Glenn Roeder said recently he felt failure was stitched into the club badge and that losing had become a culture at Newcastle – maybe he’s right. Keegan gave us a glimpse of what might be possible but if you can’t win the league with a 12-point lead, then when can you?
Leeds I think the problem with Leeds is they thought they had a divine right to success a few years ago and that’s part of the reason they started spending so far beyond their means. Right now, we’d take a place in the Premiership and beating Man United home and away. That would do us.
Man City I agree that no club has a divine right to win things. You have to have the right players, fans, manager and spirit – everything has to come together and any club can do that.
Newcastle Reading and Wigan are typical of a new breed of clubs who have neat, little stadiums and are run sensibly but they will never get into the Champions League because you need big money to do that. They’re just happy to be in the Premiership. As far as I’m concerned, all of G-14 can go and play in their Intergalactic League so we can get back to a level playing field.
Everton If you spoke to a large number of Everton fans, they would tell you they do believe they have a divine right to win trophies, even though we’ve won nothing for almost two decades. There is still the tradition and belief within the fabric of the club that we should be best. Finishing sixth just isn’t good enough.
Do you think the longer you wait, the harder it becomes to actually win any silverware? Does the lack of success weigh heavy on the players’ shoulders?
Man City I think the opposite is true – at least for the fans. You tend to think, ‘maybe it’s our year’ because, deep down, you know one year it has to be you.
Newcastle That’s not the case at Newcastle where I think we have a mentality that we are not destined to ever win anything. In 1998 we reached the FA Cup final we all went along thinking that it couldn’t be as bad as 1974 – but it was. Then, we went back in 1999 we all thought that it probably would be as bad as the last two occasions – and it was! That’s when we started singing ‘Pull It Down’ about the old Wembley, and they did. We just seem to tense up like a rabbit in headlights when we get a sniff of success – just as we did in the UEFA Cup against AZ Alkmaar. There is a fear of failure and it may come from the fans.
Leeds You have to lower your expectations the longer it goes on, whether you’re a player or a fan. We don’t go into cup competitions any more thinking we’re going to win it or even have a decent run to the last eight.
Everton My dad said to me the other day that he couldn’t see Everton ever winning the league again in his lifetime. After thinking about what he’d said, I reckon he’s probably right - unless there’s some kind of miracle.
Man City The Premiership is boring now and many City fans crave the excitement of our promotion chasing seasons of a few years back. It’s far more exciting to be involved in a relegation battle than go through the motions in mid-table.
If there was no guarantee of coming straight back up, would you accept relegation to win the FA Cup?
Newcastle Like a shot. Just to have one piece of silverware on the sideboard and a day in the sun, I’d take it. But it’d be very selfish on my part and I doubt Freddie Shepherd would agree. But what does the future hold? Mid-table for eternity? We’re in this to win things, that’s what football is all about.
Leeds I’d take that because I don’t think the standard of football between the Championship and League One would be that different. Given we’ll probably go down anyway…
Everton It’s one of our sad boasts that we’ve not been relegated since 1955. It’s something we cling to. Everton also top the all-time points table for the top division – something else we preciously hold on to. So I’d have to say no to relegation for the FA Cup.
Man City We’ve had plenty of experience of being relegated so that’s a really tough question. You always aim to be in the Premiership so I’d probably say no…
Newcastle Even if you beat Man United in the final?
Man City I’d take that one…
In the recent past, are there any Mickey Mouse competitions your club has entered in a desperate bid to land silverware?
Everton I think the one we hated most was when English clubs were banned from Europe and we took part in the Simod Cup and Full Members Cup. We should have been in the European Cup at the time and we believe we would have won it during that period. It’s still something that turns Everton fans’ stomachs today.
Leeds I can remember the Full Members Cup… and beating some Norwegian village side 18-0 in a pre-season tournament. I think we got a trophy for that.
Everton The Intertoto Cup used to be a joke but now it’s taken more seriously. One thing that makes me sick is when Man City got into Europe for being the highest placed English club in the Fair Play League. What was that all about?
Man City Is that because we just pipped Everton on the last day of the season?
Newcastle We actually won the Intertoto Cup this year - but nobody knew! We were given the cup because we went the farthest of the 11 clubs who qualified for the UEFA Cup via the Intertoto. And we’ve won the Anglo-Italian Cup. Bizarrely, we also won the Texaco Cup twice in one year. So when we moan about our lack of trophies, the actual truth is our cabinet is full of them – just the ones nobody else wants.
Leeds What did you get for the Texaco Cup? Free petrol for a year…?
Have the terraces adopted a gallows’ humour following your recent lack of success?
Everton There’s always been an element of bitterness at Everton because of Liverpool’s success, but yes there’s still plenty of humour. It’s an essential part of being a football fan, isn’t it?
Newcastle The longer it goes on the more it becomes gallows humour – or in our case Gallowgate humour. We used to sing ‘When the Toon go up, to lift the FA Cup we’ll be there, we’ll be there.’ Now it’s not ‘we’ll be there’, but ‘we’ll be dead’. It’s typical of the black - and white - humour we have at Newcastle.
Man City I don’t think City fans are bitter. United fans will say different, but I think they’re jealous of us. Bizarre as that sounds.
Leeds Yep, you keep telling yourself that!
Man City No, it’s true. They are jealous of our passion and loyalty and the fact they can’t get to us because of our thick skins. If you’re a City fan you stick by the club through thin and thin and often it’s our own humour that carries us through the bad years. When we knew we’d been relegated to the third tier of English football on the last day of the season in 1998, the first song we sang was ‘Are you watching Macclesfield?’
Leeds I’m bitter! I think Leeds fans are bitter about how the club has been run and particularly with the way Peter Risdale handled the funds. There’s still a certain amount of disbelief about where we are, but I think that the fans that have stuck with the club are the real hardcore fans and there’s plenty of humour among us. The truly bitter Leeds fans are the ones who’ve fallen away in the past five years or so. We still sing ‘We are the champions, champions of Europe!’ The only thing that really gets to us is that we’re not hated the way we used to be.
Knowing ‘The Big Four’ are likely to dominate the league and cups for the foreseeable future, what’s the incentive to keep turning up each week?
Leeds Everyone realises there is another league within the Premiership beneath the top four clubs and so now you have to set your sights a lot lower they were. I don’t think you’ll ever see a team winning promotion and then the title a couple of years later, like Leeds did in 1992.
Everton I think there has to be a breaking point. We’ve had almost 10 years of the same four clubs being at the top. Can we put up with another decade of the same thing?
Newcastle It could end up like Scotland, where the other clubs have had to put up with two clubs dominating forever…
Everton ...and the other clubs don’t have any fans. It’s not good for the game and something has to give. The average age of the Premiership fan is about 40, people who are addicted after years of attending matches, so when they’ve had enough, what happens then?
Newcastle I think most fans are happy to go if your team is playing entertaining football and scoring goals – it’s supposed to be an entertainment industry, after all. I know that I will always keep going, because the day I give up my season ticket is the day Newcastle will go and win something.
Everton These days it’s more about business than playing football and games often bore the pants off me. Because of the huge amounts of money involved with staying in the Premiership, the fear factor dictates that a lot of teams adopt negative formations. David Moyes often plays 4-5-1 and though we’ve done well this season, there’s a lot of discontentment among the Everton fans. After the home defeat to Tottenham the team were booed off - which hardly ever happens at Goodison Park - because they played safe at 1-1 instead of just going for it.
Leeds Football’s got very little to do with entertainment. It’s an addiction. I cant stop going to see them because I invest so much in them emotionally. If Leeds get turned over it still ruins my Saturday. Fortunately I’ve managed to get my moaning period down to about an hour.
Finally, if you had to place your club in the Top 50 in England, where would yours be?
Everton We’re the fourth most successful club in terms of success over the past 120 years. The Premiership makes out football began in 1992 – it didn’t – it started in the late 1800s and Everton have consistently been a big club. Ten years ago Chelsea wouldn’t have been in the top, so I’d have to say we are in the top five.
Newcastle We annually feature in the Deloitte Football Money League, which is a load of nonsense. All that matters is that in our supporters’ eyes, we are the number one club in the world despite there being 32 clubs that have won domestic trophies since we last won something.
Leeds History and tradition suggests we are among the top 10 clubs in the country, but if you go by league positions, I think we are 39th
Man City We’ve been up and down so many times over the past 20 years, it’s almost impossible to answer that question. City are a huge club in almost every sense - except winning trophies. Like the Newcastle fan says, their club is number one in the eyes of the supporters and nothing else matters.
Interviews: June 2007.
featureThu, 31 May 2007 23:00:00 +0000Nick Moore494 at http://www.fourfourtwo.comStanding at football: And Another ThingFrom the April 2006 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/standing-football-and-another-thing
Our panel, left to right:
John Harrison, cruise liner barman, Liverpool
Ian Baker, journalism student, Wycombe Wanderers
Steve Stuart, temp agency co-ordinator, Walsall
Tom Balay, trainee retail manager, Stoke City
What do you prefer about standing?
Walsall One of the advantages of standing was that if you were ever stuck between a Clayhead and a Scouser, you could move!
Stoke I much preferred standing, and I’m not alone at Stoke. Attendances have dropped since we moved from the Victoria Ground to the Britannia Stadium, and that’s because the older generation want to stand up rather than sit. People don’t get involved as much any more because they can’t move around and sing as freely, confined to their seats. You’ve got stewards telling you to sit down. The atmosphere’s lost.
Wycombe I’m on the board of the Wycombe Wanderers Supporters’ Trust, and we’re campaigning to maintain our terrace at the club and talk about the positives of standing – particularly safe standing. At Wycombe there used to be three terraces, but they rather hastily got rid of two of them, and we’re left with just the traditional home end, which is now under threat because of our groundshare with Wasps, who need an all-seater stadium and an increased capacity. But the football fans want the luxury of standing: they want to be able to move about; they want to talk to their friends; they want to engage in a good atmosphere which has been lost by all-seater stadiums; they want to be on their feet supporting their team.
Walsall The difference was that people always used to congregate together to sing and create an atmosphere, but they’re all dispersed by having to book tickets for an all-seater stadium – although over time, the singers can sometimes come back together.
Liverpool We have sections, like the top right part of the Kop, where most of the songs come from. When the Kop became all-seater, you could request blocks of tickets all together. My dad, for instance, sits in a block of 15 people who he used to stand with on the Kop. And every Christmas they get together and go away and have their do!
Walsall We’ve lost our last bit of terracing. It’s all-seater now, but we do still stand. We’re on the back row, away from anyone else. Occasionally, people try to stand in the seats down in front of us, and they get into bother. I know, with a Liverpool fan here, and bearing in mind the history of Hillsborough, the main advantage of all-seating is the fact that it regulates where everyone goes – if you used to have a 10,000 terrace, 7,000 would stand in the middle and 1,500 at the sides – but unfortunately that dissipates the passion and the energy.
What do you prefer about all-seater stadia?
Liverpool Obviously, safety’s the first reason for sitting down. It might be different in the lower leagues, but when you’ve got up to 60,000 people in some Premiership grounds, you simply can’t have them all standing, because of what’s happened in the past. You can’t let those things happen again.
Walsall Is that the case, though? If you regulated how many were in a particular area…
Liverpool But all it takes is one mistake. For one life to be lost at a football game is one too many. I know what you’re saying, that you could cordon it off and say you could have 500 people stood in that section, another 500 in that section – but then you’ve got to really enforce barriers and where people are going, and that can lead to more problems.
Walsall With a crowd of 500 in a particular section, you’re not going to get those problems. I know it’s such a big part of the history of Liverpool Football Club, but there are possible options in the future. I remember when we played you in the 1984 Milk Cup semi-finals, and the wall came down: it was the sheer weight of numbers that were in the Liverpool end. We all thought you were coming into our end for a fight, moved to get away, and there was a crush. My dad worked at the hospital and he said most of the injuries that night came at the Walsall end, because the wall at our end didn’t collapse. The fact is, if that had happened three years later, when we’d got barriers up to keep the away fans in place, Hillsborough had the potential to happen at a ground that only held 20,000.
Liverpool It could have happened when Liverpool were at Hillsborough in the semi-final against Forest the year before, but it was far better organised that year. My dad was at Hillsborough with my uncle in 1989, and everyone who was there has suffered serious mental scars. That’s why I’m involved with the Hillsborough Family Support Group, campaigning to see justice done for those innocent 96 people, as well as the bereaved and the survivors. We’d just like to see those responsible held accountable. That’s why I’ve got ‘Justice’ tattooed across the base of my back.
Walsall That’s why standing will never come back, because no government will ever vote to reintroduce something that could go so wrong.
Liverpool You can say standing’s gone from the game, it’s banned; but so is tackling from behind. It still happens at every ground, I’m sure, when you score; when you’re singing. At Anfield it happens at pretty much every European night now.
Stoke There’ll never be standing areas at high-capacity grounds, but it’s a different case for the lower leagues, although the potential for danger is still there. For example, when Stoke play Tamworth and fill their capacity on the terracing, and in Cup matches. It’s just that the risk isn’t there every week.
Wycombe Our campaign was initially aimed just at keeping our own terraces, but we worked in accordance with the Stand Up Sit Down campaign, and other people got involved. Personally, I’d love to see terraces back at all grounds in English football. I think it’s perfectly manageable, if controlled. You see it happen in Germany, and there are no problems there.
What’s the compromise between the pro-standing and all-seater positions?
Liverpool Don’t forget you can still have everybody standing on the Kop, but I can’t envisage ever going back to terracing, because it is dangerous, no matter how you control it. You can actually have controlled standing: we stood the whole game in Istanbul. Every European night at Anfield, everybody stands both at the Kop and the Anfield Road end, and it’s a fantastic atmosphere. We have flag days at Anfield, a couple of games a season, where everyone brings all their flags; and we could maybe have something similar with designated standing games in those areas, big games like the derby, Man USA and cup games. Standing doesn’t have to disappear completely from grounds.
Wycombe I think standing in seated areas is very dangerous – with no leg-room in any case. When a goal’s scored, your shins are up against the seat in front. What’s the point of the seat if you’re not sitting in it?
Liverpool Say United score and Gary Neville runs across to the section of Liverpool fans and you’re in an all-standing area, then when the people behind you come surging forward, there’s nothing to stop one person falling over, and you’ve got another tragedy on your hands. Whereas if you’re stood by your seat, it’s not going to happen.
Wycombe If there are barriers every four or five rows, you’re not going to get the whole terrace coming down behind you.
Stoke I think standing with seats is much safer, it’s just that it isn’t generally allowed. You’re usually ejected for standing up, aren’t you? And clubs have had their ticket allocations cut because their fans stand at away games.
Liverpool Every away game that you go to at Liverpool, you stand all the way through. I sit in the Main Stand at Anfield and every week I hear “Liverpool Football Club requests the away fans to sit down”, and it doesn’t make any difference. That’s what makes the atmosphere.
Stoke If 5,000 away fans at Old Trafford want to stand up, how are 30 stewards going to stop them? It’s the hardcore fans who travel away, and they generally want to stand up.
Walsall There’s always a difference between home and away fans’ stewarding, that’s for sure.
Wycombe It doesn’t always work well when people are standing in seated areas, because surely some fans will be there because they want to sit down. I’d say people should just be given the choice between sitting and standing, albeit at your own risk, on the understanding that the terraced area is going to be properly managed. That’s the case at any size ground.
Walsall It might be safer in some respects to have seats, whether you’re using them or not, but it’s a lot quicker to evacuate a standing area than a seated enclosure. Let’s not forget Bradford as well as Hillsborough, because there’s more than one way for tragedy to strike.
Liverpool But it’s not like-for-like, is it? There used to be three entrances to the Kop when it was a terrace, now there are a dozen or maybe 14. And it holds 14,000 rather than 26,000.
Were things really better in the past when you could stand at any ground, or it just a case of rose-tinted nostalgia?
Wycombe When I was little I was in the side terrace, wanting desperately to go up the ranks, so to speak, to go behind the goal where the main hardcore stood. When you get to 13 and your dad allows you to go in the main section with all the singing and swearing, and where the main bundles occur… that terrace culture. That really enjoyable culture that you saw and want to be part of: you don’t get that any more. It’s gone.
Liverpool There did used to be more trouble in grounds, the sort of trouble that’s now displaced to pub closing time on a Saturday night. As Ian says, people used to aspire to go behind the goal and have a punch-up. It’s lifestyle changes as well as demographics, because, okay, people have been displaced by the prawn sandwich brigade. It hasn’t helped the atmosphere, but it’s better for safety.
Stoke I’m not sure if it’s just how Stoke’s history has turned out, ‘cos we were more of a success when standing was the norm, but I can remember the times when I’ve stood when we were in Division One – the old Second Division – and it was a completely different atmosphere, so much better. It’s been the same at a lot of the away grounds I’ve been to with terracing, win or lose. I’ve been going since I was four!
Liverpool The seat I have now was my nan’s uncle’s, then it was my grandad’s, and now it’s mine. I can remember going in the Kop and it being so loud and so packed and so big, sitting on them bars with my dad holding on to me – like I was sitting on the crossbar or something! As far as I’m concerned it still is the Kop: it took over when the old Kop had to be retired, and it’s unique, the biggest seated one-tier stand in Britain. It’s a bit of a scary thought that we might have to go to a new ground one day, and leave Anfield, which is a really special place.
Given the experience of so many fans at so many new stadiums, what are your expectations for New Wembley, Stanley Park, Ashburton Grove…?
Liverpool The perfect example is Highbury, where you have to walk under people’s houses on stilts to get into parts of the ground. It’s got so much character about it, rather than this great big amazing stadium that looks like it’s just landed from Mars. I hope the new Wembley’s the best stadium in the world, because we’re England, and if we’re going to have a new stadium it’s got a lot to live up to. It’s the same with Anfield – we’ve got to get it right because there’s a lot to lose.
Walsall We were one of the first clubs to move to a new stadium, just after Hillsborough. I’ve been to probably three times as many games at the Bescot, but Fellows Park still feels like home – even though there’s nothing there now.
Stoke Every Stoke fan I know would do absolutely anything to go back to the Victoria Ground: when you move to another ground, it’s like you’re away. The character and the atmosphere are lost. Grounds like Pride Park and Coventry’s new ground, they’re all built in derelict land in the middle of nowhere; but the pre-match, how the fans enter the ground, and the frame of mind when they get in: that all reflects on the team, because obviously the crowd is the 12th man for any team.
Wycombe I went the Ricoh Arena earlier this season: it’s eight miles from the train station. There’s no train link, there’s no bus link, so you have to get a taxi – and then the parking’s terrible as well. It’s ridiculous. Inside the ground I saw about 10 people standing up, wanting to support their team, and getting ejected – and this was Coventry City against Plymouth Argyle! It was a huge overreaction to the tiny potential problem, and you see it week in, week out. I don’t think you need anywhere near as many police at football matches, especially if stewards are better trained.
Liverpool We have our own police officers and stewards who travel with us, and they actually do care. It makes you feel a bit more confident.
Did the Taylor Report produce knee-jerk responses?
Wycombe The aim was obviously to prevent another tragedy, and it’s probably done that; but the knock-on effects have been a disaster for the game. Meanwhile, Lord Justice Taylor was actually quoted as saying that “standing accommodation is not intrinsically unsafe”. It’s on the Stand Up Sit Down website.
Liverpool Don’t forget he’s a judge, and it’s all very forensic, what he was saying. But the fact of the matter is, once you get people, as soon as you get any other imponderables and things happening on the spur of the moment, terracing is inherently unsafe.
Stoke You can’t put anything before a person’s life. Everything else comes second.
Walsall It’s individual situations that people aren’t prepared for – which we’ve all seen at football grounds – that present the danger to fans. To be honest, if I’d been the inspector in charge outside Hillsborough, and I’d been told people would die unless I opened the gates, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.
Liverpool But would you then have turned around to the press and said it was the Liverpool fans who kicked the gates in?
Interviews: April 2006.
featureFri, 31 Mar 2006 23:00:00 +0000Nick Moore500 at http://www.fourfourtwo.comReferees: And Another ThingFrom the February 2006 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/referees-and-another-thing
Our panel, clockwise from top left:
Mark Clattenburg, Chester-le-Street
Martin Atkinson, West Yorkshire
Mark Halsey, Lancashire
Dermot Gallagher, Banbury
What do you enjoy most about being a Premiership referee?
Gallagher My whole week, from when I start out on Monday morning to walking out and doing a match, and then finishing and driving home feeling very satisfied that what I’ve planned for all week has come to fruition. I can’t imagine reaching 48 in any other walk of life feeling as fit and healthy as I do, and having the satisfaction of going out on Saturday or Sunday and taking part in one of the best sports in the world.
Clattenburg I agree. Now that we’re professional referees, there’s an enjoyment in everything we do, from the build-up right through to the game itself.
Halsey Well, we’re all football supporters as well: we love the game, so it’s a pleasure to be in it. People work in factories, getting up at six o’clock and doing 12-hour shifts – we’ve come away from that. We’ve been there, seen it, done it, worn the T-shirt – it just feels good not to be there anymore!
How have things changed since refs went full-time pro in 1998?
Gallagher This year our working week is totally different because we also get Football League games. We’re actually training throughout the week to get a match on a Saturday. And that will tell you how much it means to us – I’d much rather referee at Yeovil Town on a Saturday than be fourth official at Newcastle United. Now I can imagine how a footballer feels when he trains all week and is put on the bench. I can understand why he spits the dummy and bangs on the manager’s door and says, “I want a transfer!”
Halsey We want to referee, we don’t want to be sitting on the bench. When people see you at those [lower league] grounds they think that you’ve been dropped from the Premiership, but that’s not the case.
Gallagher I’m not sure there is that misconception now, to be honest. Managers and supporters do now recognise that we’re refereeing more and more games, and they’re much more appreciative of it.
Have expectations changed too?
Atkinson Over the last two or three years, expectations have grown a hell of a lot. The game is getting faster and faster; players are more skilled; there’s an emphasis on keeping the game going. We put pressure on ourselves to perform too – the fact that you’re now seen as professional, people look at you differently, and you want to perform at the top of your game. A man in the stand sits and watches us referee, but we’re not just judged on that instant perception of the 90 minutes. They then take a video away – they’ll sit and say “that was a soft free-kick, and that soft free-kick might have led to that”, and so on.
Halsey No one else is under as much scrutiny as we are in our jobs. People in the game – spectators, managers, coaches and players – want accountability. And we’ve got no hiding place. If any one of us has a bad game on a Saturday, you can be sure we won’t be doing a Premier League game the following week. Every training session we do, every match we do, we wear a heart-rate monitor which we have to download to Matt Weston, our fitness guru, to check we’re up to scratch. We had letters in the summer telling us lose a certain amount of fat, and if we didn’t we’d be fined.
Clattenburg We even have one of those urine charts to make sure your wee is the right colour on match day!
What’s your pre-match routine?
Atkinson If I’m at home the night before the game, I like to go to the gym at teatime on the Friday, and just chill out. Sit in the steam room, sit in the jacuzzi – not talk to anybody, just try to focus on the game. Think about the teams. Have I refereed at that ground before? Good experiences from that ground... just mentally trying to prepare so that the game will go well.
Clattenburg I’m completely different. I don’t prepare the night before a game. I don’t even think about the game of football until the morning of the match or, if it’s an evening kick-off, the afternoon. I’ll start to concentrate from around about 11 o’clock, so I’m really peaking at around three o’clock.
Halsey I’m the same. If you’re thinking about the game too far in advance you can get all anxious and tensed up.
Clattenburg I used to do the same as Martin in my first year, early doors in my Premiership career, but now I’ve switched off from it because it starts to play on your mind. Then I’ll start pre-judging as well.
Halsey Once Martin becomes more experienced on the Select Group, he won’t think about the games; he won’t think about the players.
Clattenburg Players are very diverse: a certain player will react very differently to one referee than to another. There are players I can react to that Mark [Halsey] can’t, and vice-versa. Thinking about my management skills, I might be making them my friend during the 90 minutes, which Mark could find very difficult; but you can’t prejudge. You can’t tell until the players and the crowd react to you and your style of refereeing on the day – because you can referee differently from one week to another, so there’s no point picking out players who might be difficult to manage.
Halsey Yeah, games are all very different. I think it takes at least four years to earn the players’ respect – to let them get to know you.
Let’s talk about the laws of the game...
Gallagher The laws are like the Highway Code – I don’t say this to be sarcastic – I need to know how to apply the law. I need to know what is wrong, what is right and how to deal with it. I always liken it to driving a car: if I see a red light I never once think “brake, change down gear, stop”, I just do it. And that’s what I do on the football field. I see something, I know it’s wrong, and I react to it.
How well do you think players know the laws of the game?
Gallagher They don’t have to know the laws of the game to play, do they? Knowing the laws of the game might not help certain players who live on the edge, and play better on the edge, and we all know who those players are. A little bit of knowledge might take away a little bit of what they’re trying to do. By and large, most teams need a player who’s going to live on the edge and most top teams already have one.
Halsey They’re not paid to apply the laws of the game, are they?
What about the fans? Are they better informed than the players?
Clattenburg We’re all fans. When I go and watch Newcastle, there may be times where I disagree with the decision, but when I analyse it 10 minutes later, I’ll think, “Nah, he’s got that spot on.” But the genuine fans don’t think that, because they get what we call tunnel vision – they only want to see their team win. There’s a blame culture in this country, and they’re always looking to blame somebody, and fans won’t blame their idolised centre-forward for missing three open goals, but they will blame the referee who’s given something wrong.
Don’t controversial or marginal decisions contribute to the rich tapestry of football, though? Without controversial decisions there would be fewer talking points...
Clattenburg If the game’s exciting to watch and there’s plenty of action and incident, then I could have made four poor calls in that game, but you walk out the stadium and the general fan will say, “What a great game to watch, fantastic.” You do that again in a scrappy game, you’ll come out that same stadium and people will go, “You were rubbish today.” But, unfortunately, the referee doesn’t make the game exciting. Players get paid to entertain; we just manage them.
Gallagher That’s where a referee’s real talent comes in, sorting out what to give and what not to give in a game like that. He knows a game’s rubbish, he knows it’s peeing everybody off – what you’ve got to do is find the fine balance between controlling that game, applying the laws, and not bringing everything around yourself. If 22 players are upsetting the fans – all right, let it be. But you don’t want to be the one who’s suddenly got to pick up the pieces. That is a very special talent to have in games like that.
Halsey We’re in the entertainment business; fans want to see entertaining games.
Gallagher We’re the catalyst between two chemicals.
Atkinson If you’re performing well as a referee, then hopefully the players will perform and the game will flow and everything else with it. But if it isn’t going as well, if it’s scrappy and the players are misbehaving, then we’ve got to get involved. You’ve still got to keep control, haven’t you?
Halsey Players dictate how we referee the game. But I think those referees with natural flair and natural ability – the guys we’ve got here – they’ll go out and express themselves differently to a ‘manufactured’ referee. People know that I like to keep the game flowing, play plenty of advantage – same with Mark, same with Dermot. Martin’s not been on too long so he won’t be in our category because he’s just feeling his way. He won’t referee a game like I referee a game.
What do you mean by a ‘manufactured’ referee?
Gallagher Somebody who has been taught to just see in black and white. Clattenburg We understand how football should be played and the spirit it should be played in. There’ll be times where a tackle will go in, and a ‘manufactured’ referee won’t see why: all they will see is yellow or red. They don’t see the lead-up to it.
Halsey Gordon Strachan said a few years ago, “Referees know the laws of the game, but they don’t necessarily understand the game of football.” But some of us do.
Clattenburg There’s a lot of times in a game, when a player gets upset, I’m thinking, “Why’s he upset? Who’s upset him? What can I do to stop this getting out of hand?”, whereas another referee will let it develop. So the player eventually thumps another player and gets red-carded. Whereas if I’ve sent a player off for that, I’m devastated internally. I’m thinking, “Could I not have prevented that?”
Halsey When you go to a match that’s got a Select Group referee, you watch how much talking we do: that’s prevention. The natural referee will spot the things going on around him before other people do.
Clattenburg We all come from different jobs and backgrounds, but those referees who come down from a management or director-type background can’t use the same management tools that they’ve used in their old job – you have to change to suit the game of football.
Gallagher If I was to get one thing over to football fans, it’s to say, “Accept us as 20 people, not as one; because we’ll never be as one.” And all this talk about consistency, common sense, uniformity with one another... as long as you control a game from minute nought to minute 90, you apply the laws of the game correctly, and the players can go home feeling that they’ve been protected, I think you’ve done your job. How you do it within the laws of the games, within your own personality and your own talent skill – it’s malleable, isn’t it? We’ve got people who come from the police force, we’ve got people who come from teaching backgrounds – they’re obviously going to be different people to a snotty-nosed boy from a council flat in Dublin, who worked on a factory floor.
Are you in favour of technology being introduced to assist referees?
Halsey Personally, I think goal-line technology – was it a goal, was it not a goal? – is pretty basic. But otherwise the game is quite quick in the Premier League and if you do it like cricket, you have to keep stopping, waiting, going up to the man in the stand, then it transfers the decision from you to him.
Clattenburg Rugby League does it, but the massive difference there is that they have a natural stoppage in play to make that decision. Why not go to matter-of-fact to see whether the ball is over the line or not, but not for things like penalties and cautions which are a matter of opinion and interpretation?
Gallagher I’d go further. Any incident where the referee awards a foul or handball against a defender around the penalty area, then there’s a natural stoppage. Nowadays it’s impossible to take quick free-kicks, so that’s going to take anything up to 20 or 30 seconds to restart play. Within four seconds, you can play back and check whether it was in the penalty box – and I would say that makes a massive difference to a decision. I would do that immediately, as from next season.
Clattenburg But if it was a tight call, it might take more than four seconds. What if the camera or the fourth official comes back and says it wasn’t even a foul – that there was no contact at all?
Gallagher I’d like FIFA to have a look at it.
If there was one thing you could change about refereeing, what would it be?
Gallagher I’ll tell you what’s the most frustrating thing in the world to me: the amount of faffing about you get at a throw-in. The referee should be able to say, “You’re the nearest to it – you take it,” because it ain’t rocket science to take a throw-in.
Halsey I’d like to see a change to the situation where you give a penalty and you have to send the player off. I think the penalty’s a sufficient punishment.
Gallagher I feel sorry for goalkeepers, as well, because they’re an endangered species these days, anyway.
Halsey Yeah, because they genuinely come out and make an attempt for that ball. They could be a fraction of a second late – course, the guy goes over his arms; goalscoring opportunity; you give the penalty, you’ve got to send the keeper off. And sometimes it’s so unfair. But that’s the laws – we don’t necessarily agree we them, but we have to implement them.
Interviews: February 2006.
featureWed, 01 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000Nick Moore499 at http://www.fourfourtwo.comMascots: And Another ThingFrom the January 2006 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/mascots-and-another-thing
Our panel, left to right:
Buzzy, Brentford
Chaddy, Oldham Athletic
Chirpy, Tottenham Hotspur
Moonchester, Manchester City
How does one become a mascot?
Moonchester I just fell into it really. I’m a City fan and I was doing a few little jobs for the club, when they asked me if I wanted to do it on a temporary basis until they held auditions to find a permanent replacement for the old Moonchester. Five years later, I’m still doing it.
Buzzy I started out as a ball boy at Brentford, then as I got older I was put in charge of the other ball boys, plus I was doing a bit of stewarding for away matches. I was always fairly annoying so when the club decided to create a mascot, they asked me.
Chaddy I’m an Oldham fan, but I’ve only been doing Chaddy for just over a year. I knew they’d been having some problems with the old Chaddy, then my wife told me he’d been sacked so I told the club I was interested in taking over. But they had 30 applications so I had to go to an interview and audition, along with 12 others. After displaying my sense of humour and ability to run up and down the pitch in the costume, I was chosen.
Chirpy I’m a Tottenham supporter and, as a professional actor, I wrote to the club about seven years ago to ask if they wanted me to help create and develop Chirpy as a character. Someone from the press office did it for a year but he’d had enough, so they asked me to come in for an audition. That was when I made it my own.
What are your characters’ back stories and personality traits?
Chaddy Chaddy’s just turned seven but he has a growth problem, which explains why he’s so big. He’s a typical youngster, full of mischief, stealing chips off people and dunking them in their drinks – things like that. He’s also a bit of a flirt with the ladies.
Chirpy Chirpy’s a bit older – 12 – but he’s also naughty and playful, so to get into character I revert back to my childhood. When he’s not doing press-ups or the splits, he goes through ladies’ handbags and messes up their hair and gets men up to dance. His behaviour’s not always appreciated, but they always forgive him.
Buzzy Brentford’s a family club so generally I have to be fairly well behaved. Lots of waving and handshaking.
Moonchester Moonchester is an alien who heard some signals from the Blue Moon about a great football club. He followed the signals and ended up at Maine Road. He has an enormous head with an antenna, which he loves to wiggle. That’s his signature move. He also has a girlfriend, Moonbeam, and before kick-off five City kids and five away kids take penalties against us. It’s a good job you want the kids to score because it’s almost impossible to save anything in those uniforms.
Buzzy I saved every penalty in the LDV Vans Final in Cardiff – I was on fire!
How do you get on with other mascots? Any particular rivalries to speak of?
Buzzy It’s all pretty friendly between mascots. I get on particularly well with Boomer the Dog at Port Vale and we’ll go out socially.
Moonchester I’ve even been to other mascots’ weddings. My best mascot mates are the City Gent from Bradford, Sammy the Shrimp from Southend and Burton Albion’s Billy Brewer. I even go out for a drink with Fred the Red after derby games.
Chirpy Funnily enough, I’m quite good friends with Arsenal’s Gunnersaurus. At the FA Cup semi-final at Old Trafford in 2001 we walked round the pitch together and pretended to have a fight for the photographers. But when I got back to the Lane for the next home game, some fans wouldn’t talk to me because I shook his hand. Mostly it’s light-hearted banter, but the rivalry between the fans has increased somewhat since Sol Campbell’s move.
Chaddy When I inherited Chaddy, he had a bad reputation among the other mascots so they were a bit prickly, but now I’ve met them and got to know them, everything’s fine.
Moonchester At Coventry once, I got into a snowball fight with Sky Blue Sam. It started off fairly light-hearted and the fans loved it, but it soon got a bit intense and some stewards had to step in and calm us down.
How are you received by opposition fans?
Chirpy There aren’t many grounds in the Premiership that will allow the away mascot to travel. Could you imagine what would happen if I went to Arsenal or Chelsea or West Ham or their mascots came to White Hart Lane? It probably wouldn’t be safe. I’m not allowed anywhere near the away fans at the Lane, either, especially against those teams I’ve just mentioned. On a few occasions their fans have tried to climb over the barriers to get at me, like when I pulled my shorts down and did a moony at the Arsenal fans. That caused a few problems for the stewards and I haven’t been allowed near the away fans since. I suppose I shouldn’t have done it.
Moonchester Bolton, Middlesbrough, Chelsea and West Brom all let you travel and it’s fantastic. I’ve never had any trouble. Whenever they get close enough to you, they always shake your hand. You also get the more hardcore City fans travelling as well, so that atmosphere’s always great as you spend most of the game next to them.
Chaddy I can go on as many trips as I like, but some fans still take it too far. At Huddersfield once, someone threw a bit of pie at me so I jokingly threw it back – and he threatened to knife me. I quickly backed off when I realised he was serious. I also got bollocked once for winding up the Chesterfield away fans at Boundary Park.
Buzzy Most of the time the abuse is harmless, but I had a couple of beer bottles thrown at me by the Millwall fans once. I’ve also had fans punch me in the face at away games, which hurt a bit, but unfortunately you can’t retaliate because there are kids around. The worst occasion was at a home game one Christmas. We had some carol singers on the pitch before the game and one of them threatened to set me on fire with his candle – which was a bit of surprise coming from a carol singer!
How's your relationship with your players and coaching staff?
Chaddy Cracking, although we bought 12 players over the summer and a few of them didn’t know how to take me at first. The manager Ronnie Moore and his assistant John Breckin are great and most of the players let me have a knockabout with them before the game. I go in goal quite a lot and they try to score past me.
Moonchester I have a laugh with all the players. I even had a water fight with Kevin Keegan once. I let him win, though!
Chirpy I have a lot of interaction with most of the Tottenham players. Like when Jamie Redknapp was there as captain, we got on very well. In fact, once I even snogged his wife Louise. I also get on well with Jermain Defoe – and Paul Robinson has been giving me some goalkeeping tips for the half-time challenge, ‘Shoot for a Holiday’, when I have to try to save penalties. As for people at other teams, I tried to pick on Roman Abramovich when Chelsea came to Spurs this season. I tried to give him a hug but before I got close to him one of his minders stepped in and I didn’t want to mess with him, even in my costume.
What have been your most embarrassing moments?
Buzzy I’ve had a few. I was playing in goal before kick-off about five years ago when a player called Rob Hutchings took a shot and knocked my head clean off and into the back of the net. I didn’t want my true identity to be revealed so I dived into the net after it but I got tangled up, so the players had to pile in and help to get me out! Another time, I fell back and knocked myself out during the half-time penalty shootout. What people don’t realise is, there’s a builder’s hat attached to the foam so you get quite a whack when you fall. Nobody realised I was hurt – they thought I was messing around – so when I came round I had to carry on. I was all over the place. I spent the second half of the match with St John’s Ambulance.
Moonchester I had a penalty shootout with one of the mascots once – I forget who – and I really tried to whip the crowd up, goading him and everything. But as I stepped up I slipped on my arse and spooned it miles wide. That was embarrassing.
Chirpy Against Charlton once, I had to go over to the tunnel and welcome the players onto the pitch, but as I ran in front of the away end, I fell head over heels. The whole ground, even the home fans, were taking the mickey out of me. In my defence, though, it was absolutely pouring down with rain.
Chaddy That’s always tricky. I’ve slipped over a few times trying to give the ball back to players. When Oldham score I always sprint across the front of the Chaddy [Chadderton Road] End. It was only my third home game and you can’t see that well in those masks. I ran right into the goalpost and fell flat on my back.
What are the perks of the job?
Buzzy I don’t get paid, but I get into games for free obviously and I also get a discount in the club shop.
Chirpy I get a season ticket as well – and they’re not cheap at Spurs!
Moonchester I don’t get paid either, but I do get paid for other events. I’ve done a couple of hen parties and for one, I borrowed a policeman’s stripping uniform, which I wore over my football kit, before doing a striptease. It went down well.
Buzzy Yeah, I’ve done a few functions – I did a cricket club dinner in the summer.
Chirpy I also get fan mail all the time – sometimes as many as 200 letters a week. They’re mostly from kids asking for my autograph, but I get some from women as well. I’ve even had women try to put their phone number in my sock or look down my shorts at games.
Moonchester I get loads of letters from kids too, saying “it was really nice to see you at the match” and I always send them a signed postcard back. But the best reaction I get is from adults. I’ve had big, butch-looking guys show me tattoos of Moonchester they’ve had done and one woman had a tattoo of me in her cleavage.
Buzzy I don’t really get fan mail.
What are the drawbacks of being a mascot?
Chaddy The uniform’s sooo hot, even in winter.
Chirpy It’s like being in a sauna in the summer. During one pre-season friendly, I was so hot that I nearly passed out.
Buzzy It’s stupidly hot. Even in the middle of winter I’m sweating like a pig.
Moonchester The colder the weather, the better and if there’s a gale blowing and you get your head at the right angle, it’s heaven.
How have you fared in the annual Mascot Grand National?
Chirpy This year was my first one but I was rugby-tackled at the beginning by the Chester City mascot, or it might have been the Bradford City Gent, who was stood right next to me. I’m not sure if I was targeted or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I only came about 30th... but I’ll be back.
Moonchester I’ve done it about five times now and have never come anywhere, which is hardly surprising in this outfit. But I managed to take out the chicken this year.
Buzzy I’m too slow to clobber anyone. You can barely see in the suit either, so I was quite a way behind the leaders.
Chaddy I think it was between 15th and 20th. The guy who was Chaddy before me won it twice. He’s quite a good athlete and he was accused of cheating.
Do your friends and family know about your double life?
Buzzy I tried to keep it a secret at first, but now most of them know. My girlfriend and mates even introduce me to people as “Buzzy the Bee”!
Moonchester My family and friends all know what I do, but I try to make sure new people I meet don’t know and I make sure people I know don’t tell anybody.
Chaddy All my mates think it’s great, but I’d never reveal my true identity to the fans – that’s a big no-no.
Chirpy My entire family are Spurs fans so they all know. Sean Bean, who I know through acting, also knows, so whenever Sheffield United are playing at White Hart Lane, he’ll ring me up asking for free tickets!
How long do you plan to be a mascot for?
Buzzy I’d do it forever if I could. I know everyone at the club and I enjoy it. And because I was the first, I want to carry on as long as possible. I could have a rest if I ever have kids, but I’d be going to matches as a fan anyway.
Chaddy I’m the same, although I might have to calm down a bit as a get older!
Moonchester I get really twitchy if I go to away games and I’m not Moonchester. If I ever gave it up I’d have to find something else to do at the game because I wouldn’t be able to just sit and watch. It’s the best job in the world.
Chirpy I’m doing two feature films at the moment, so I want to do it until I become really famous. Then I’ll be doing it as a famous person and nobody will know it’s me. I miss doing it when we don’t have a match, and I’m not sure I could go to a home game now without being Chirpy.
Obviously cockerels, owls, aliens and bees don’t speak ‘human’, so FourFourTwo interviewed Chirpy, Chaddy, Moonchester and Buzzy in their respective languages. Interviews: January 2006
featureSun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000Nick Moore496 at http://www.fourfourtwo.comBeing a female fan: And Another ThingFrom the November 2005 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/being-female-fan-and-another-thing
Our panel, from left to right:
Liz Rakowicz, advertising account director, Barnet
Emma Keens, account manager, Arsenal
Annika Giffard, personal assistant, QPR
Rachel Sullivan, journalist, Leicester City
How did you first get into football?
Rachel I don’t know. I grew up with a brother and a step brother, who were both Spurs fans and they made me watch Spurs incessantly when I was a kid, so I decided I hated Spurs and would never support them. I supported Leicester instead, because that’s where my dad was from and he supported them. Saying that, my first game was Spurs v Sheffield Wednesday when I was 13 – I lived in Slough and didn’t have anyone to take me to Filbert Street so I went to White Hart Lane with my brother. Then, when I was at Manchester University, I got a job selling pies at Maine Road so I could watch football and as soon as I could afford to do my own thing, I bought a Leicester season ticket. I still go but I haven’t got a season ticket anymore – I’ve got a life instead!
Annika My dad first started taking me to Kingstonian when I was six – I made him buy me chips and Kit Kats throughout the game because I didn’t really want to be there, but the more I went, the more I liked it, and when my dad became a director I’d go to every game, home and away. When I met my boyfriend a few years ago I started getting into QPR, because he’s a fan, and now I go about 10 times a season.
Emma With me it’s hereditary – my dad’s an Arsenal fan. I always liked playing football with the boys when I was little, then I noticed how excited my dad got watching football. I thought it looked fun, so I went to watch a game with him when I was 10 and I’ve been hooked ever since. The first match I ever saw was at Dover Athletic, because they played at the end of my road, and I started going to Arsenal in my mid-teens.
Liz My dad used to play for Chelsea youth and is a mad Chelsea fan, so I’d sit and watch football with him every Saturday. But I started supporting Barnet because I found I had a lot more respect from people when I would say I supported a lower division team. Plus it was great to have a few beers in the local with a couple of the players on a Saturday night discussing the game. That's how it should be.
What's the best thing about being a female fan?
Liz Shocking men with how much you know about football, particularly when you know more than they do. That’s always priceless.
Emma I really like the look on blokes’ faces when they try to patronise you and then realise that you actually know what you’re talking about.
Annika The best thing is that you don’t have to queue for the toilets – and the toilets aren’t actually that bad.
Rachel But they never have any mirrors. Just because we’re watching football, it doesn’t mean we don’t still need to do our make-up.
Annika They had mirrors at the old Wembley.
Rachel Did they?
Annika I also find that blokes let you queue jump when you’re at the bar.
Emma Overall, I don’t know if it feels that different being a female fan.
What’s the worst thing?
Liz Sexism. Although it’s dwindling, it’s still rife.
Emma Sometimes men do that really annoying thing of making you prove how much you know, asking you loads of questions about games which happened when you were five, as though you’d been reading Shoot. They act like you’re not a proper fan if your memory bank doesn’t go back years and years. I think some men really don’t like it if you know as much as, or more than, them. Supporting Arsenal, a lot of people assume that I’ve just picked one of the top teams. I don’t think I’d get that as much if I were a bloke.
Annika Some men honestly don’t believe you can be into it as much as them. I’ve had people say all the usual things, like “you’re only here to look at their legs.”
Liz I’ve been accused of that as well.
C’mon, admit it, it’s true…
Liz Yeah, yeah, hand on heart, that’s what it’s all about.
Moving on. How do male fans treat you at games?
Liz I have to say not bad at all. They appreciate that you’re there because of your loyalty to the team. It makes no odds what sex you are.
Emma The other thing is, they’re less coy about talking to you at football. Obviously, they’re friendly with each other, but it’s “Alright love?” and they do try to include you.
Rachel Do they, though? I was thinking about this last night, and no man that I don’t already know has ever spoken to me at football.
Annika I know what you mean – they certainly don’t try to chat you up.
Rachel You might as well be invisible.
Annika I think it’s because you’re usually with blokes yourself. They’re not gonna be letchy like they are in a club or a bar.
Emma I find they tend to want to have a knees-up rather than chat you up.
Rachel Oh, I’d love to be chatted up at football – is that tragic?
Have you ever feared for your safety at games?
Emma Maybe in the pub, beforehand, but never during a game.
Rachel I remember going to a Marseille game once. They were rebuilding their stadium for the 1998 World Cup and because of the building work, there was only one really small opening for people to get out of. It took us 45 minutes to get out and because you’re a girl you feel really vulnerable in that situation. Everyone’s crushed together, any everybody was male and much taller than me, so I couldn’t see anything. I was actually quite scared then.
Emma The only time I really feel threatened is when you’re walking out of a game and it’s been really highly charged or there’s been a really controversial incident. You just want to get out of there in case it kicks off.
Annika When QPR played Cardiff in the play-offs, we were walking back to the coach from the stadium and these Cardiff fans were running round like madmen, carrying sticks. I was quite scared because I was with a lot of blokes, who may have been targets or might have wanted to get involved. I remember saying “Please, let’s just get out of here.”
Liz I had an incident at an England-Poland game at Wembley about 12, 13 years ago. I was waiting for my little brother outside the men’s toilets at half-time, wearing a Poland shirt because I’m half Polish. Suddenly these three England fans walked past and, assuming I was a non-English speaking Pole, one of them said really loudly, “There’s one, let’s get her and rape her later.” That was pretty nasty.
Do you shout and sing at games?
Liz I’m incredibly vocal. It’s not flattering for a girl, I know, but that passion just takes over.
Annika I sing, yeah, but I don’t shout on my own.
Rachel I do. And I swear.
Emma So do I, and I’m very loud. And because it’s really difficult to get tickets for Highbury, I tend to go to a lot of away games in the home end, so I have to really try to keep my gob shut at times. I also take clients in corporate hospitality sometimes and it’s very difficult to stop yourself cursing the opposition and singing.
Do you ever get embarrassed by other female fans shouting nonsense at games?
Liz Totally. I know I should be supportive of more female fans, but sometimes it’s quite obvious they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Rachel I love that girls love football and I should be more supportive of that, but often it’s a case of thinking, please don’t make an arse out of yourself. Look at Delia. That just made me cringe.
Annika There was an American woman at QPR the other week who would not shut up for the whole game and she’d clearly never been to a football match in her life before. She was like, “C’mon, do this, do that”. I wanted to kill her.
Emma I hate it, whether you’re in the pub or at a game, when people just go to comment on it the whole way through. The odd comment or at half-time is fine, but for the rest of the time, just watch the fucking game.
What do your boyfriends think about the fact that you like football?
Annika My boyfriend loves it.
Liz Mine too. He gets to play every Saturday and watch Match of the Day and all the live games without me putting up a fight. Although he hates the fact that I know more than him, but he’s a Villa fan, so what do you expect?
Rachel My last boyfriend didn’t really know much about football, but he got quite into it when he was going out with me. I think men like the fact that they can just sit down and chill out at the weekend. I also took him to Leicester when we were playing Portsmouth, where he’s from. We won 3-0, which I enjoyed!
Emma My ex-boyfriend was a Chelsea fan, so when Arsenal and Chelsea played each other, we’d spend the whole game arguing over every single decision.
Liz A couple of my friends can’t stand football and won’t even have it on in the house, which I can’t get my head around. Each to their own, I suppose.
Does the idea of dating a footballer appeal?
Rachel Not in any way.
Annika I agree.
Rachel I think they’re complete morons. I interviewed Ray Parlour once and when the pictures came back he was looking down my top in a lot of them.
Emma Obviously they look great in the flesh when they’re playing, all fit and healthy. Phwoar! But then you see them in post-match interviews…
Liz I’d be lying if I said it didn’t appeal, but more because of the idea of supporting him proudly from the stands, rather than the supposed glitz and glamour of it all. I did go out with a footballer years ago, but I knew him from school so he was a friend first.
Annika A small minority of footballers are decent blokes and quite intelligent, but you couldn’t hold a proper conversation with most of them.
Rachel Even then, I’d find the fact that they were a footballer extremely off-putting.
Emma It’s also the fact we know what most of them are like.
Rachel I wouldn’t say no to Jose Mourinho, though.
Annika Me either.
Emma Yeah, I’d definitely get involved there. And Freddie Ljungberg…
Have you ever donned a football kit in the bedroom?
Emma I can’t say I’ve ever been asked.
Rachel Men love it, don’t they?
Emma I can see why men find it sexy.
Liz I wore a Nottingham Forest shirt for an ex-boyfriend once.
Rachel I could never wear a Forest shirt! Or Derby!
Emma Yeah, it would definitely depend on which team it was. I could never wear a Spurs shirt. Or Chelsea. Any London team, in fact.
Liz What about Barnet?!
What do you make of Sepp Blatter’s opinion that female footballers should wear tighter kits to attract more male fans?
Rachel The Italy shirts at Euro 2000 certainly made it more interesting for me, so I can’t really have a go at him for saying that. But nobody takes Blatter seriously anyway, do they?
Liz I think what he says works on the assumption that women watch football because they fancy the men, and I don’t think that’s true in the vast majority of cases. It’s like beach volleyball: wearing tight clothes might make men watch for five minutes, but once the novelty’s worn off, it’s not gonna be enough to get them into it.
What about football on television. Would you rather watch MotD or Desperate Housewives?
Rachel Good question.
Emma Thank God for Sky+.
Liz Match of the Day every time.
Annika I never really got into Desperate Housewives.
Emma It depends what the main games were on MotD. Am I allowed to say that? I really like Desperate Housewives, so it’s a tough call.
Annika I don’t like watching football on TV that much, unless it’s an important game or QPR are playing. And I don’t like watching games in the pub – I’d rather watch it at home.
Rachel But there is that excitement when it’s a big game and the pub is packed. I watched the Champions League final with loads of friends and it was brilliant, a night I’ll never forget.
Annika When I worked in Spain, we used to go and sit in a bar on Saturday afternoon and watch the results coming in. I loved it.
Emma Football’s always on in my house at the weekend. You’ve got Soccer AM, then Soccer Saturday, then Match of the Day and any live games. I’d happily sit in and watch football all weekend.
Rachel I love listening to 6-0-6 on Five Live on the way back from games as well. Obviously most of the callers talk bollocks, but it’s kind of a tradition.
Female presenters, though, they’re a bit rubbish right?
Annika I don’t think so.
Rachel I think Gabby Logan and Celina Hinchcliffe [who presented the Womens’ Euro 2005 coverage on the BBC] are brilliant… then again I would say that, Celina’s one of my best friends from school!
Emma If it was just some bird sitting there talking crap, it would be rubbish, but it’s not.
Rachel I’m sure being an attractive female did Gabby Logan no harm, but she’s still great.
Emma I think Helen Chamberlain’s done a lot for women in football. I’m envious of any woman who’s got a job like that.
Rachel But when I worked for FourFourTwo, people used to ask me if I liked football before I got the job. How stupid is that? They’d never ask a man that.
Speaking of questions you’d never ask a man, can you explain the offside rule?
[Sighs, tuts and looks of derision all round]
Annika Do you really want me to explain it?
Rachel No, don’t do it.
Liz It’s hardly rocket science, is it?
Annika Although I didn’t know until recently that you can’t be offside from a throw-in...
Interviews: November 2005.
featureTue, 01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000Nick Moore492 at http://www.fourfourtwo.comBest league in the world?: And Another ThingFrom the May 205 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/best-league-world-and-another-thing
Our panel, left to right:
Alex Florez, student, Hertfordshire, Barcelona
Tom Edwards, writer, north London, Tottenham
Tony Minoldo, fitness instructor, Bassano del Grappa, north Italy, AC Milan
We’ve got an idea what you’ll say, but go on: which league is the best in the world?
Alex Spain.
Tom The Premier League has to be. You ask anyone what football is all about, and the real strength is what it means to the fans. Attendances in England are higher than in Italy and Spain and football matters more to more people. It’s that simple. The clubs are sold out every week and that says it all.
Tony That’s because the capacity in your stadiums are so small: and anyway, your fans are boring. How can you sing a song sitting down? And there are no flags or firecrackers. I’m sorry but that’s boring. Listen, they don’t even show English football on Italian TV, because it’s so boring and lacks tactics and strategy. If you watch one film directed by John Smith and you don’t like it, then you watch another one and another one, and you don’t like any of them, eventually you will stop watching the films by John Smith. That’s what it’s like with English football – and you guys are the so-called inventors of the game.
Tom What do you mean, ‘so-called’? It’s a fact that we invented it.
Tony No, in Italy we played a game called calico which involved kicking an object with our feet in 1300 in Florence.
Tom Look mate, we had three leagues set up and running before Italy even existed.
Tony That doesn’t mean you’re the best.
OK, calm down! Which league offers fans most value for money?
Tony There are two ways English fans know how to entertain themselves: drinking before the game and drinking after the game.
Tom Don’t be silly, there are passionate fans throughout England, who keep coming back even if their team is not doing brilliantly, like at Sheffield Wednesday.
Tony They’re masochists!
Tom The clubs in England are also more profitable than anywhere else. Of the top 20 richest clubs in, eight are in the Premier League.
Tony That tells you more about the ignorance of the fans, who spend more money on their team than their families. Milan never change the colour of their away kit: if you believe in your colours, you don’t change your tradition.
Tom English clubs are just better at commercially exploiting opportunities.
This season the title race in Italy is more exciting than the other leagues. Is that an indication of a league’s strength?
Tom Before Chelsea came along, the only teams that could win the Premier League were Arsenal and Manchester United. But there are no easy games and everyone takes points off everyone else. You can predict who will finish in the top four and the bottom four, but not that Crystal Palace will take points off United or that Arsenal will draw twice with Southampton.
Tony In Italy, anyone can lose a game to anyone, apart from maybe Juventus who get some help from the referees! But the gap between first and last place is bigger in England than in Italy.
Alex There are more big clubs in Spain than the other leagues. Four different sides have won the title in the last six years, which already makes it more competitive. And then you have clubs like Athletic Bilbao, who will only pick Basque players for the side. While Real Madrid and everyone else buy the best players in the world, this fiercely passionate side will only have local players – and they are still competitive, they won the title twice in the 1980s and are doing well this season. It’s a more romantic concept of football. I bet Liverpool would love to have a team made up of local players. Instead most of them are Spanish.
Tom If you’re going to look at the geography of a country, you have to ask whether in fact the Italian league can be considered a truly national league. The top three teams are based in Milan and Turin, where the crazy industrial powers produce the best sides.
Tony That is a reflection of society in Italy. Everything is more efficient in the north: people don’t have more money there, but they use it better. Everything works better in the north: the police, the army, the shops, the football clubs. I can tell you, if Diego Maradona was at a northern Italian club instead of Napoli, there’s no way he’d have been allowed to behave like he did when he played there – and then he would not be in the trouble he is in now. We never have the player scandals in Italy. Antonio Cassano is a bad boy, but he is bad on the pitch, not drinking or beating up minorities.
Tom In England, at least the balance of power is split between Manchester and London. That makes the league a truly nationwide proposition.
Alex That’s true but Spanish clubs come out best in that case, because the spread of power is more evenly distributed in Spain. You have Deportivo in the north-west, Madrid in the centre, Barcelona in the north-east, Bilbao in the north, Valencia and Sevilla nearer the south. That is proper nationwide.
Still, there are no Spanish sides in the last eight of the Champions League for the first time in 12 years. How important a barometer is success in European competitions?
Alex It is important, but this year the Spanish clubs have had a blip. That can happen when it’s knock-out football, but I know it was a one-off and they will come back stronger next year. Over the last five seasons, Spanish clubs have by far the best record in the Champions League and that is an indication that the Spanish league is the best. The technical quality is superior and we also get first choice of the best players from Argentina, who come to Europe and often go straight to Spain – mainly because it’s easier for us to fake their passports!
Tom I just don’t agree that Champions League success shows the strength of a league – you can’t say the Portuguese league is the best in Europe just because Porto won the Champions League last year. It’s like saying the Greek league must be great because they won Euro 2004.
Tony And as for saying you get the best Argentinians, they’re only in Spain because they’re not good enough to succeed in Italy. Roberto Ayala and Claudio Lopez both failed in Italy but did well in Spain. It’s harder to succeed in Italy because the coaches are so much better prepared. Again, look at a successful coach in Spain, like Hector Cuper: he comes to Italy and fails.
So are you saying that Italy has the best coaches?
Tom Most people would agree that Jose Mourinho is the best coach in the world right now. For a lot of people, coaching in the Premier League is the pinnacle of their career – that’s why it’s so difficult for other coaches to break into it.
Tony But even he has admitted that he wants to coach in Serie A when he leaves Chelsea. That means he sees the Premier League as a stepping-stone, and the real test is in Serie A. The truth is only four foreign coaches have won the league in Italy – Sven-Goran Eriksson, Helenio Herrera, Nils Liedholm and Vujadin Boskov. It’s hard to succeed as a coach in Italy and only the best do. One of the reasons is because they work so much harder to get the best out of their players. Look in Gazzetta dello Sport on a matchday and you will see so many different formations – 4-4-2, 3-5-2, 4-1-4-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-3-2 – every team is playing something different, something that suits them and makes it difficult to do well against them. Most English players only know how to play 4-4-2.
Tom But in England, we have some of most cerebral coaches in the world. Mourinho has made the 4-3-3 system work and not necessarily be boring: everyone conveniently forgets that boring Chelsea have scored more league goals than Barcelona this season. Arsene Wenger has done brilliantly at Arsenal and even someone like Martin Jol at Spurs has taken a very average team and made them more competitive.
Tony I agree with that but Wenger’s failure in Europe is a weakness for the Premier League. You are talking about quality and technique and yet every time it comes down to it, Arsenal, this great team, always fall down.
Would you at least all agree that the Italian league has the best defenders?
Tony It’s part of the culture. If you’re good player in Italy, you play in defence. We even have the two best goalkeepers in the world now as well, Gigi Buffon and Dida.
Alex No way. Iker Casillas is better than both of them! Some of his saves this season have been out of this world. He’s more consistent and always makes big saves. He spends the whole game diving to keep shots out.
Tony That’s because he has much less technique. He can’t catch the ball. When I was coached as a goalkeeper, I was told that the more dives you make in a match, the more you are out of position.
Tom The fact is, Petr Cech has conceded the fewest goals. But I think Tony is right: compare Milan’s unbeaten run in the early-1990s to Arsenal’s just now, and that Milan side was based on defence. They only conceded 15 goals in one season, while Arsenal never played with the same constraints: if their opponents scored four, they would score five – as they did when I saw them beat Spurs 5-4 at White Hart Lane. My team lost but I was still entertained, as you would be if an away team scores five goals. I accept that more goals do not automatically make it better, but that was one of the best games I’ve ever seen.
Tony Yeah, but Jose Mourinho said that was like a hockey score, and he was right. When there are nine goals in a game, someone is not doing their job properly. Anyone who watched that game would say, “Oh my God, that was awful defending!” When I want entertainment I go to the cinema, when I watch my team play, I want them to win.
Alex If you don’t want to be entertained, why do you even like football? In Spain, there are exciting wingers like Joaquin at Betis and Vicente at Valencia. These guys are great to watch and make the league more exciting. In England, the new trend is for teams to play 4-5-1 and that debunks the myth that the Premier League is exciting. Charlton, Fulham, Blackburn, they all play it – and so do Everton and to be honest, Everton are disgusting to watch. They can’t pass, they play three holding midfielders and they are fourth in the division! In Spain, they’d be 16th.
What about the negative aspects – diving, fouling, etc – in each league?
Alex The worst is England. The defenders are dirty and aggressive. The coach will say he told his team to get stuck in but it’s just a euphemism for kicking the opponents as hard as they could. In England they cheat more and are more violent.
Tony Oh my God, are you joking? What are you talking about? In Spain, they’re bloody criminals. They’re terrible, they get you from behind. They just lack skill in England. I’d say it’s harder in England, but it’s nastier in Spain!
Tom The defenders are more honest in England.
Alex No. In Spain, teams are happier for opponents to come into their own half and they defend from there. It’s more intelligent than in England, where forwards are throwing themselves at players to stop them crossing the halfway line.
Why are there more foreign players in the Premier League than the other leagues?
Alex It’s a real failing of English players that so few succeed abroad. I think it’s because of their technique, their lack of education and the simple fact that they can’t be bothered to learn a language. It’s embarrassing.
Tony English players can’t adapt to the game – they are not as good at thinking about what they have to do all the time.
Tom I don’t think having so many foreigners is such a bad thing. If you want diversity, England is the best place – there are so many different types of players who can succeed here, like Alan Shearer, Gianfranco Zola and Dennis Bergkamp.
Tony Ha ha! The last two only came to England because they failed in Italy. Zola is a good player but made his name in England because the defending is much worse. There are certain players that succeed in certain leagues: in Italy, the teams rely on power forwards like Adriano and Andriy Shevchenko. Look at certain players and how they struggle to adapt in Italy: when I see the shape of Ronaldo now, I just think, he would never score in Italy. But he scores in Spain because the defences are crap. He did nothing at Inter.
OK, finally, if there was a European Super League and each country had six teams represented in it, which nation would be most successful?
Alex I honestly think the Spanish sides would come out on top. Barcelona would win it one year, then Real, then Valencia. They are all good league sides and have shown in the Champions League that they can compete against the other sides and do well. Spanish sides would win every year.
Tom That’s not true – you would get the same fluctuation you get now in Europe. All the teams go through cycles of power and there would be spells where one country may dominate for two years, then another will win things. That’s what happens throughout football and you can see that in Europe. No single country has dominated the Champions League – though I would like to point out that only England had four teams representing them in the Champions League last 16.
Tony But two of them got knocked out. I think both of you have had too much beer!
Interviews: May 2005.
featureSat, 30 Apr 2005 23:00:00 +0000Nick Moore493 at http://www.fourfourtwo.comRacism in football: And Another ThingFrom the February 2005 issue of FourFourTwo...http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/racism-football-and-another-thing
Our panel, left to right:
Billy Grant, record label MD, Brentford
Raj Dohia, IT consultant, Liverpool
Peter John-Baptist, quality controller, Wealdstone
Juliet Mayne, administrator, Crystal Palace
Can you remember the first time you experienced racism at a football match?
Billy I’ve watched Brentford for 25 years and followed England since 1988. I started to go during the whole skinhead era – and there were loads of skinheads at Brentford. I was one of only two black people and I used to get a lot of hassle, even from our own fans – abuse like, “There ain’t no black in the Union Jack, send the bastards back.” Getting beaten by your own fans on the terraces used to happen a lot too. I see the guys now and they’re all repentant – they’re in their forties and they say: “I’m sorry Bill, we were so stupid.” It doesn’t excuse things but they’ve realised their mistakes. I remember it clearly though; it was a frightening place as a teenager.
Peter I’ve been supporting Wealdstone for 24 years and I went to my first England match in 1980. You’d hear people shouting racial abuse, but I was in school and a lot of it went over my head. I grew up in the ’70s when some of the stuff you’d hear on TV you just wouldn’t get now. They say a programme like Love Thy Neighbour was a way of highlighting how stupid racism was, but when you’re eight and you’re watching a comedy series where someone’s calling his next-door neighbour a “coon” and a “wog”, it becomes almost normal. You learned to live with it.
Juliet I’ve been supporting Crystal Palace since I was at school and following England since 1997. I’ve never had racism aimed directly at me. The first time I noticed it was in Sweden. An England fan behind me was giving Henrik Larsson grief. Not that I found it shocking, but I felt I had to turn round and say something – and it really shook him up. With hindsight it doesn’t seem the most sensible thing to do but I feel strongly about it.
Raj I’ve supported Liverpool for 20 years and I’ve been going to England games for three years. I remember things like the John Barnes banana incident from when I was growing up, but I think the thing that stopped me going to games was the perception that the media has always given – that if you’re Asian you can’t go to games because you WILL get beaten up, you WILL get abused. That stopped me for many years.
Billy Racism at football has definitely diminished in comparison to the ’70s. Back in the day it was actually quite scary. If you were black you had to be careful if you walked past a pub in case people ran out and chased you down the street. I was only 15 when I went to my first away game and I didn’t know anything about violence – then 50 Reading fans came round the corner and asked us who we were. My mate just said, “Leg it” and I ran down the road chased by 50 of them shouting, “Get the fuckin’ nigger.” I was lucky to survive. You wouldn’t get that kind of problem these days.
OK, but has racism really diminished in British football, or does it now just manifest itself in different ways?
Billy At England vs Wales I was with an Asian girl who goes to lots of England away games. We noticed two guys who we’d both first met in Japan – they hadn’t seen us and all of a sudden they started to sing, “I’d rather be a Paki than a Turk.” It wasn’t the whole crowd, it was just these two. My friend went up to one of them and said: “That song you were singing is offensive to me.” I think these days there’s a certain level of ignorance. The guy didn’t realise he was being offensive – but to a lot of people it’s offensive.
In club football, which fans are the worst?
Juliet I was shocked when I went to see Leeds at Filbert Street a few years ago and I heard their fans singing, “You’re just a town full of Pakis.” You go to watch Leicester in the same way that you go to watch Palace – the majority are white, but you also see Asian and black fans and there’s a comfort in that, but to hear the whole away section singing something like that was shocking.
Raj The irony is that in Leeds there are a lot of Asians, but Leeds United have a big problem.
Billy Leeds were actually one of the first and most prominent anti-racist campaigners back in the early-’80s. They were very proactive in the anti-racism campaign because of their problems. Is it that kind of experience that deters many black and Asian fans from coming to football?
Billy Yes. My mates will say, “I’ve got £30 in my pocket. Why would I spend it going to a game where someone’s shouting, ‘I’d rather be a Paki than a Turk?’” Until the game cleans its act up they can’t expect people to come in.
Peter English football culture is quite narrow and you have to get into it to be part of it. People’s perceptions are that football is about sitting in a pub for an hour before the game. Rightly or wrongly, that’s how some people perceive it, and it’s going to be a long time before that perception goes. Strip away all the trouble and the racism and that perception will stay for a long, long time.
Billy During France 98, I organised a bus trip to Jamaica versus Croatia in Lens. We had 50 people on the coach, young and old, but only six of them had ever been to football before. When we got to the game there were sound systems, barbecues, rum punch… basically the experience on offer was an experience they were into. People were saying that if they’d known it was like this they would have brought 10 friends. Presented like this, people were getting excited about the football experience – but in England it’s too much about [Cockney accent] “This is what it is and if you want it you’ve got to come in.”
Peter My family’s not from Jamaica, they’re from Dominica, but I went to see Jamaica play Brazil last year in Leicester and I’ve never seen so many black people in a football ground in England. There must have been 15-20,000, many of whom were my age or younger; whether they don’t feel English or they don’t feel comfortable going to see England play I’m not sure. I’ve got two brothers and although I feel English, they don’t – and we all grew up in the same house.
In the run up to Euro 2004, there was a lengthy debate about the amount of England flags on cars and in pubs, implying it was connected to a rise in racism and anti-European feeling. Do you agree?
Billy England fans used to take the Union Jack to games and when you’d see the flag of St George, 98 percent of the time it was a British Movement thing. Scary. Any time I saw that flag it scared the shit out of me because you knew what was going to come with it. As we got into the ’90s and things began to simmer down we had Euro 96 and that was the first time I went into the grounds and saw images of kids: they had black kids, white kids, Asian kids, Chinese kids – all with their faces painted with the St George’s. That took the flag away from the fascists and put it in the hands of the kids.
Juliet I understand how people get emotional about the flag, but your emotion should be geared to wrestling it back – it belongs to everyone, not to the BNP.
Peter Before I left for the last World Cup I was driving around West London and I’d never seen so many England shirts worn by black people or that many flags hanging out of windows in predominantly black areas. Possibly a lot of young people who’d grown up liking Des Walker in 1990 or Paul Ince at Euro 96, Ian Wright playing for England, maybe they looked at them and thought, THEY seem to be accepted by fans, why shouldn’t I wear the shirt? Whether they’d actually go to games I don’t know.
Raj It’s a reflection of how society has changed since my parents came here 30 years ago. It’s a very different place and it’s being reflected in football – maybe not in the stadiums every week, but it is obvious when a tournament comes along. It’s become a celebration. Euro 96 was one big celebration, France 98 and Euro 2000 bigger still – and more black and Asian people started to think, Sod it, it’s a tournament and we’re going to enjoy it. It’s a generational thing too: first- and second-generation kids are viewing England as where they belong. Who are they going support?
Billy Things are getting better – particularly with the tournaments. Euro 2004 was brilliant. The amount of Asian fans that turned up gobsmacked me. I saw groups of 10 or 15 guys at a time, guys who had never been to an England game before. I asked some of them why they’d come and they said, “We just thought it would be a laugh.”
How did you feel about the racism during England’s recently friendly in Madrid?
Peter I was there. The monkey noises were the worst I’ve heard for years. Worse than Slovakia.
Billy My mate said he’d never seen so many middle-class racists. Everyone talks about racism and neo-Nazism, but when you’ve got the middle classes doing it, it’s a serious problem.
Raj My first England game was away to Slovakia and it could have easily put me off, but Slovakia is years behind England. You wouldn’t see the same kind of behaviour in England now. We’re a step ahead – more than any other European country.
Billy Interestingly, three England fans came up to us and said, “Those Slovakian bastards are racially abusing our players. They’re out of order.” It was almost like they were defending our honour. I’ve never actually seen that before.
Peter I’ve been hearing that for a few years. In Rome in 1997, when Sol Campbell touched the ball he got the inevitable chanting from the Italians, and a high percentage of the England supporters turned to them and were booing and whistling the Italians for doing it. That happened when we played Germany in Charleroi too.
What did you make of the recent Dwight Yorke incident – and the Birmingham City chairman’s comments about it?
Billy People like David Sullivan, Big Ron and Frank McLintock are not white hood people or Ku Klux Klan, they’re people with an old-fashioned attitude in a modern game. The reason this game isn’t moving on is that there are too many people stuck in the ’60s with a completely archaic way of thinking. How can we get new people in with a new way of thinking when the game is run by old donkeys, people with an old way of thinking?
Peter There’s a lot of resentment from the older fans about the way the game has been marketed over the last 15 years – they don’t like the fact that the country and football have changed.
Billy We’re not saying racism is an epidemic, but it’s still there in places and needs to be wiped out. Ten or 20 years ago it was far worse, but even if an incident involves just one or two people, like at Blackburn, it’s too many. The authorities need to make sure it doesn’t happen again; once people realise the authorities really want to bring new fans in, my mates might think, These people are really serious about it and they’ll start to come.
It seemed that even the fan responsible for abusing Dwight Yorke realised he’d done something that was socially unacceptable…
Peter He turned himself in.
Billy It becomes socially unacceptable when you’re caught though, that’s the problem. When you’re caught it’s, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it, I’m not really like that, I’ve got lots of black mates.” That’s rubbish, I’m not interested. People have to realise it’s unacceptable beforehand so they don’t do it. The trouble is if they’ve got these thoughts in their mind and you can’t get rid of it – you can’t change a person, but you can make it more comfortable for people who want to go to games.
Have the laws that require ejection from grounds for racial abuse had any real effect?
Billy No. Has anyone ever done it?
Juliet I have friends who are season-ticket holders at West Ham and for a whole season they sat near three blokes who would verbally abuse any non-white player. They complained – verbally and in writing – and every week these people still turned up to the matches. If in practice the clubs do nothing about it, what’s the point?
Billy I don’t think any of us here are politically correct, we just live in the real world. But if we try to change things, people say, “Oh, I hate all these politically-correct left-wingers.” No: we just want to live in a situation where things are right.
Peter Many fans want to hang on to the old days: standing on piss-soaked terraces yelling abuse.
Raj They’d love to see no women, no children, no blacks – just a group of guys, pissed up and having a banter and abusing anyone they want. The fact is that the game has moved on now.
Billy The game is TRYING to move on. The era has moved on, but some people haven’t moved with it and there aren’t enough people in the game in positions of power who understand the situation. I’m not saying you must have a raft of black and Asian people in those positions, but there are not enough people in positions of power who have enough compassion to understand the situation. If you speak to any black footballer they just say, “It’s just part of the game, some managers are terrible – they call us all kinds of stuff, we just ignore them.” Until we have people in these positions who can start neutralising what is happening then we’ve still got a problem.
How long will it take until we see thousands of black faces at run-of-the-mill club games?
Juliet It will happen, but it might not happen in five or 10 years, and it won’t be until dinosaurs like Jimmy Hill and Ron Atkinson have gone and there are positive steps being made to have more black pundits, trainers and managers. Then you’ll see more black people, more women, more kids.
Peter To be honest, I don’t give a shit who’s in the ground and what colour they are. I’d just like a situation where people can go to a game and not have to worry about the colour of their skin.
Interviews: February 2005.
featureTue, 01 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000Nick Moore498 at http://www.fourfourtwo.com